Master's Comment:
This article is excellent. Its understanding of why Dafa disciples validate the Fa is lucid, the righteous thoughts behind it are strong, and it is logical and clear. I hope the Dafa disciples in Mainland China will all read it. Dafa disciples are validating the Great Law, and they should not be attached to the outcome of the vile Party's meeting. This is because everything in human society exists for Dafa and for Dafa disciples' cultivation. Whether something be upright or wicked, all the same it can only act in accordance with the needs of Dafa.
Li Hongzhi
September 19, 2004
Revised on October 8, 2005
(Clearwisdom.net)
With ordinary people now holding the Fourth Plenary Meeting, some fellow practitioners feel that a certain leader in the central government is good, and they hope that the head of the evil hands over power to this leader, along with other thoughts that rely on ordinary people. Some practitioners have been keeping a close watch on this news everyday, and their moods fluctuate along with it. Actually, regarding these issues, Teacher has made it very clear over and over again, so why are some people still so attached to hoping that the wrongs against Falun Dafa can be redressed or gaining a fair, just environment through some source of strength from ordinary people? Why is it that at critical moments, we always forget the Fa that Teacher expounded specifically targeting our attachments?
Our Falun Dafa practitioners' clarifying the truth is not affected by external forces. Whether the head of the evil steps down or not, we all still have to extensively and comprehensively clarify the truth. Even if the head of the evil steps down, we still need to continue to thoroughly tell the world's people about the persecution that has been happening for the past few years, so that more of the world's people can understand what has been happening. If the head of evil steps down but still continues to control the persecution from behind the scenes, we'll expose his new crimes while continuing to expose the persecution. If he still clings to his post, we should search within ourselves more thoroughly, purify ourselves even more and do better in clearing away the evil and clarifying the truth.
In terms of the leaders of the Chinese Government, it doesn't matter what rank they hold in the ordinary world. As far as we are concerned, aren't they all sentient beings? Aren't their futures determined by their attitudes toward Falun Dafa and the persecution? The attachment of pursuit, depending on ordinary people and observing society's direction are all serious obstacles for clarifying the truth. These impure mindsets often cause the results to be the opposite of the intention. These types of hard lessons should not happen again and again.
Furthermore, through contact with practitioners in different areas, I noticed something in the Shijiazhuang area and its neighboring cities and towns. Materials that did not come from Dafa websites are being circulated to different degrees. Some were compiled by people intent on damaging Falun Dafa, for example "The Great Golden Shining Path." Some were compiled by practitioners who run truth-clarification material sites, for example, "Something is Going on in China."
The content of "Something is Going on in China" was excerpted from an ordinary people's website. Basically, it talks about how high-ranking officials in the Chinese Government openly did the Falun Gong exercises as a group in their compound, and how there was a furious debate on the Falun Gong issue in the Central Committee Meeting, where they nearly came to blows, as well as other unconfirmed information that has been circulating among ordinary people. Actually, this is all old news from ordinary people's websites. Today, even those websites have let those matters go.
If you were a member of ordinary society instead of a Falun Dafa practitioner, you would have a different standard guiding your actions. For people in society, there is no issue of not being allowed to get involved in politics. But if we cultivators take political content and make it into truth clarification material, and distribute it to ordinary people on a large scale, the effect will be extremely negative, because it directly violates Falun Dafa's requirements. We say that we do not get involved in politics, but when ordinary people don't understand the truth, they don't just listen to what you say--they really watch what you do. When they see what you do and feel that you are getting involved in politics, they'll develop a negative impression, and then it will be very difficult for them to accept it no matter how you defend your actions. Isn't this pushing people away, then?
I. The Cultivation of Falun Dafa Forbids Getting Involved in Politics
Right now the Chinese Communist Party is holding its Fourth Plenary Meeting. A lot of reports have indicated that the head of the evil was forced to resign and hand over power. Then, how should our Falun Dafa practitioners look at these issues? If it is true, should we relax a little and feel that the environment is getting easier, or pin our hopes on the new person in power redressing the wrongs against Falun Dafa?
Right now some practitioners feel that a certain leader in the central government is good and hope that the head of the evil steps down. Teacher has made it very clear in lecture after lecture: Falun Dafa practitioners have their own mission to save the world's people, and we should not turn around and depend on ordinary people to redress the wrongs against Falun Dafa; even less should we disregard how ordinary people will end up and forget about our responsibilities, only hoping to end our own suffering as soon as possible.
When an ordinary person steps forward to support Falun Dafa and says that Falun Dafa is good, it is this being's goodness being displayed and properly positioning him or herself in the Fa-rectification. As Fa-rectification Falun Dafa disciples, we should clearheadedly walk our path righteously, safeguard Falun Dafa's purity and remember Teacher's teachings by heart:
"I have repeatedly emphasized that we absolutely do not get involved in politics, that we absolutely do not meddle in politics and that we absolutely do not take part in politics." (From "Teaching the Fa in the Beijing International Experience Sharing Conference", unofficial translation)
No matter what happens in ordinary society, our minds should remain unaffected. The Falun Dafa practitioner's path is the Fa-validation path that Teacher has arranged for us. How to do well now lies in the three things that Teacher requires of us.
From my recent Fa-study, my personal understanding is that the current situation is very favorable to our clarifying the truth. The evil in other dimensions can no longer sustain itself. The two big decisive battles in Beijing and New York are major engagements at a time when Fa-rectification is drawing to a close. The evil will soon no longer be able to continue, and a very big change will also take place in the ordinary world. However, no matter how big a change may happen, we as Falun Dafa practitioners should remain unaffected and should not be moved by the outside world. Perhaps the head of the evil in China will step down (or perhaps he will cling dearly to his post), perhaps many countries and organizations outside of China will give us enormous support, but Falun Dafa disciples have Teacher's teachings to guide us on how to take each step well. We should not slack off because of any change in external conditions and develop thoughts and behavior that are like those of ordinary people.
On the other hand, when many fellow practitioners who have not been diligent read Teacher's recent lectures, they almost could not believe it: Fa-rectification really is about to draw to an end and the first large-scale process of weeding out really is approaching. Many were awakened and have returned to Falun Dafa one after another. We can see that time is truly quite pressing; the time to save sentient beings is quite pressing. Once this matter is over, those people who still do not understand the truth will no longer be saved. Therefore, we Falun Dafa practitioners should seize the day and try our best to save the world's people. People of today are also reincarnations of high-level beings, who have gone through so much to get to today. How important it is to save a life!
At this final stage of Fa-rectification, our minds should be calm and stable, "taking the Fa as our Teacher." The only hope and the only thing that sentient beings can count on are Falun Dafa practitioners in the world today, so we should walk the Falun Dafa practitioners' path righteously. No matter how we validate and safeguard Falun Dafa and save sentient beings, we must follow Falun Dafa's requirements and we must not lower our standard, and even less should we conduct ourselves as ordinary people or even deviate from and damage Falun Dafa.
II. Taking the Fa as Our Teacher in the Strictest Sense
Some people have come to some understanding of one of Teacher's poems in Hong Yin II,
Minghui saves the predestined ones
Xinsheng removes the mind's ill-thoughts
Renmin's knifelike prose unnerves demons
Falun Dafa is Zhengjian*
They believe that "Renmin" is referring to the Renminbao website, and since Renminbao makes positive reports about Dafa, they believe that by reprinting articles from Renminbao, we are conforming to Dafa.
This behavior is interpreting Teacher's words out of context and covering up one's own attachments, and if one can't recognize this and correct it, it can easily lead one astray.
A mere few days after Hong Yin II was published, I saw a flyer at a fellow practitioner's home. All of the articles in that flyer came from Renminbao, and the content in that flier was similar to other flyers under different names that appeared later on. I voiced my opinion and said we should not distribute this type of flyer as Falun Dafa disciples' truth clarification literature. Unfortunately, it became evident that other practitioners were indifferent, and no one tried to stop those people responsible for the circulation of these flyers. They all felt that it was enough to talk about it, and everyone has their own understanding--it was fine as long as they weren't the ones passing the flyers out. They didn't think about truly being responsible to the Fa, to themselves, to the fellow practitioners who made these flyers, and to the people that read them.
Later, I met practitioners from other areas in the past few days, and they all said they have seen these flyers. They said they told the practitioners who distributed the flyers that they were not Minghui articles and should not be distributed as truth clarification literature, but they didn't solemnly point out the consequences of passing out those flyers and the damage they could cause.
During this last stage of Fa-rectification, the evil force is creating great internal interference among the Dafa practitioners. There always seems to be someone doing inconceivable things that deviate from Dafa, even things that undermine Dafa. These things should be a matter of deep concern from Dafa disciples. Just because we are in the final phase, we can't take shortcuts and not think about the Fa, or not think carefully about whether something is in accordance with Dafa.
Recently, some practitioners in Wuhan City bought pre-made Buddha statues to promote Dafa. In some areas, practitioners did things that deviated from Dafa while playing waist-drums. In some areas, practitioners changed the Fa rectification verses and the form for sending forth righteous thoughts, which also took place here locally. Some people in our area pretend to be studying the Fa on the surface, but they are actually not studying and running away from Fa rectification. They gathered together a group of people and do messed-up things all day long.
Why is it that these people are not behaving according to the requirements of Dafa and often do a set of different things, yet they think they are doing the right thing?
Before Teacher published the most recent teachings, we had felt during experience sharing that for quite a long time, the strength and results of truth clarification have not been good. We felt like the area covered by our truth clarification was too small, the number of people that have understood the truth and received salvation was too small, despite the fact that we have distributed so many flyers, VCDs and other materials in the past few years. So why is this the case?
Thinking it over, Teacher has always told us to clarify the truth . Mainland Falun Dafa disciples don't have any media at their disposal. Television in particular has a huge impact and influence on people, because they can see it with their own eyes, as if they were being communicated to face to face, so of course the impact is the greatest. Since we don't have our own TV channel, we can distribute VCD's, which should be able to clarify things pretty well. Indeed, we've distributed a lot of VCD's. Reading newspapers is also a major way for ordinary people to get information, so we have also produced a lot of flyers and pamphlets to clarify the truth, which provide an adequate amount of information. On top of this, we have done audiotapes and tapped into TV broadcasts. We have done everything we could think of.
Dafa practitioners are the main body during Fa-rectification cultivation. We overly depended on truth clarification materials and for a long time, ignored our own power and value. These materials are only tools to assist in our large-scale truth clarification efforts. Although other practitioners have written articles online that constantly reminded us of the importance of clarifying the truth face-to-face and improving our understanding of Fa principles, we have not paid enough attention to this issue as a whole.
What I want to say is, when unconsciously Dafa disciples don't clearly understand or don't measure up to the requirements Dafa has for us during this period, the evil will take advantage of the omission. It will do everything it can think of to restrict us, to keep us from improving in terms of the Fa, and have us do things in a passive, low-efficiency manner. During experience sharing, we realized that most of the practitioners who distributed flyers in the past few years were in the situation mentioned above (of course, this is not always true), and a large portion of the other practitioners hardly distributed anything. They only read Teacher's lectures, and some also read articles from the Minghui website. As for the practitioners who distribute flyers, some of them think that they are not linguistically gifted, so they make up for it by passing out more materials; some thought that distributing flyers was their strength; and some thought, "There are so many people, how long would it take if I talked to everyone with this one mouth of mine? I should just pass out flyers--even like this there isn't enough time." As a result, for most practitioners, they clarified the truth using their speech to a very small or insufficient extent, which limited the outcome of our truth clarification efforts as a whole.
In fact, for many of those Dafa practitioners who do not have mental barriers in this area, they have been talking to people while giving them flyers. After several years, their way of thinking and speaking ability have improved by leaps and bounds. More importantly, when it comes to whether a person really understood the truth, how to improve in clarifying the truth, what kind of materials works better, and which ones need to be improved--only those who often talk face to face while distributing materials are able to get sufficient direct feedback. From this information, they are able to reach an objective, accurate understanding and judgment, so that they can then help people truly establish righteous thoughts through the materials they passed out, in a rational, wise way. Not distributing materials is definitely doing something from one side only, but giving out as many as possible is not our goal, either. Our goal is to help people establish righteous thoughts toward Dafa and understand the nature of the persecution.
If we can't let go of the attachment of relying on others, it will lead to bad consequences, no matter whom we rely on. We have gone through the lesson of relying on ordinary people many times, such as relying on the former Premier of China, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, putting our hopes in Party congresses, and other examples. We have had enough of these painful lessons. The resulting losses and difficulties are reflected in the way we have done things subsequently. Even though what's being relied on is the materials production site run by Dafa disciples, if everyone relies on the materials production site, then the evil would focus on destroying it, so that no one could read articles from Minghui or get a hold of truth-clarification materials. If we all let go of our ordinary people's mentality and proactively participate in validating the Fa with righteous thoughts, do everything we are supposed to do with Dafa disciples' pure compassion and great forbearance, there wouldn't be so many painful lessons. We should establish material production sites, and everyone should be a material site unto himself. We should proactively clarify the truth and eliminate the evil's interference with the materials sites. We should not just casually pay lip service to it, but we should put it into action after realizing what to do! An elderly Dafa disciple in Beijing bought a small portable copier and solved the problem of producing truth-clarifying materials. Some practitioners make copies of audiotapes and distribute them. Some practitioners find reasons to go to public places and clarify the truth to people there, and hand out small handicrafts they made that have words clarifying the truth on them, etc. So why is it such a difficult thing to do in our area?
The key reason is that we only focused on doing things, instead of cultivating as we do them. We have to ask ourselves how much we believe in the Fa, to what extent do we believe, how much have we reserved for ourselves, and to what extent--can we let go of self and melt into Fa-rectification, or are we protecting ourselves and leaving difficulties to others? Of course, practitioners who are unable to do certain things cannot be forced to do them by others, but how much are we truly putting our hearts into doing these Fa-rectification things, and do we truly believe in Dafa?
Teacher said in his recent article, "Let Go of Human Attachments and Save the World's People,"
"This is especially so for the Dafa disciples in Mainland China: each must come out and clarify the truth, bringing it to every field and valley, mountain and hill, not omitting a single area where there are people. And as for people who want to learn the practice after you clarify the truth, you should arrange for them to study the Fa and learn the exercises as soon as possible. They are the next group of disciples who will cultivate.
"When you clarify the truth, you need to make Fa study a priority. And stop reading and passing around those fake scriptures made by rotten demons who disrupt the Fa and that are spread by evil taking advantage of students who have studied the Fa poorly and harbor strong human attachments. Keep up your righteous thoughts and righteous actions, keep a clear head, and rationally and comprehensively save the world's people."
My personal understanding is that Dafa disciples should cherish this opportunity and spread the truth about Dafa to every corner in China instead of distributing truth clarification materials without a clear purpose. We should step forward and talk personally to the Chinese people, without waiting for or relying on other people, and be proactive. We should get in contact with the Chinese people in the most direct way, clarifying the truth with wisdom and rationality. While doing this, we should distribute more materials, covering a greater area with a greater variety of ways to do so. It's not that we should stop passing out materials. Through our direct observation and contact, we will know from the people's firsthand reaction how we can awaken their souls. Our materials will therefore be more accurate and effective, and more able to directly dispel their confusion and truly offer them salvation. If we only give out flyers and do not talk to them, they won't even know where to go to learn to practice.
Those people who circulate bad things should stop being led by their attachments and stop being used by the evil to interfere with and disrupt Dafa. Even more so, they should not disrespect Teacher's benevolence and take their own lives as a joking matter.
III. Recognize Clearwisdom's role in Fa-rectification
As a trustworthy and reliable website for Fa rectification period Dafa disciples, Clearwisdom has far-reaching functions and significance. It is a website that truly regards the Fa as the teacher, and is a place that serves both practitioners and society at large, a place where cultivators can exchange experiences and Dafa is promoted. Clearwisdom Net is a beacon that Teacher has given us to light our path and for the path of the world's people, and it is pure and righteous. Teacher said, "It's not that the Minghui website is never wrong, but when it comes to major issues, you must look at Minghui's stance. When I published my picture and 'The Knowing Heart' on the Minghui website, the purpose was to establish a credible website for you."
We cannot rely on ordinary people to validate Dafa. Dafa disciples' and ordinary people's validation of Dafa and their understandings are filtered, processed, purified and rectified through Clearwisdom and then returned back to the Dafa disciples and the world's people. This cycle and purification process go on continually, and nothing in ordinary society can compare to it, and Teacher is watching the website. So articles on Clearwisdom have the pure and righteous power endowed by Dafa, helping Dafa disciples to carry out the magnificent task of validating Dafa and offering salvation to the world's people, so Dafa disciples should follow the overall direction of Clearwisdom on the major issues of validating and upholding Dafa. There was no report on Clearwisdom regarding the Fourth Plenary Meeting. Instead, articles about truth clarification and cultivation are continuously being published. Isn't this a telling direction?
What I have written above is my personal understanding. Fellow practitioners, please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
In closing, please allow me to share with everyone Teacher's poem "Hurry Up And Tell Them:"
"As Dafa disciples tell people the facts,
It's like sharp swords shooting out together from their mouths,
Shredding apart the rotten demons' lies.
Lose no time and save them; hurry up and tell them!"